Activists display posters during a rally condemning Thursday’s attack outside the Starbucks cafe where it took place in Jakarta, Indonesia, Friday, Jan. 15, 2016. Their identification with the Islamic State group in distant Syria is an attempt to change those perceptions by linking to a network known for brutal, headline-grabbing attacks.
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Jakarta police spokesman Muhammad Iqbal also revealed that there had only been four terrorists killed in the attacks.
Another 20 people were injured, some of them reported to remain in critical condition.
Bahrun, an Indonesian, spent one year in jail for illegal possession of weapons in 2011, and is now in Syria fighting for the group. Many Indonesians go by a single name.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the blasts in online statements, but analysts said the attack caused significantly less damage than other coordinated attacks attributed to the group, such as the November rampage in Paris that left 130 dead.
Indonesian Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan confirmed media reports that three men had been arrested on suspicion of links to the plot and that an IS flag had been seized from the home of one of the identified bombers.
The dual Algerian-Canadian citizen shot by militants was named as Tahar Amer-Ouali, while the sole Indonesian killed, Rico Hermawan, was being fined by the police when the attackers blew up a traffic post.
Both IS and any affiliate “have an interest in being seen as part of a larger network because it fits with their scare tactics”, even if they are tied only by sympathies, said Carool Kersten, an expert in Islam at King’s College London. “Indonesia is a strong state, it will not be provoked by terrorism”.
Following recent ISIS threats, the country, which had been attacked by Islamist militants several times in the past, had been on high alert. He allegedly orchestrated Thursday’s attacks remotely from Syria. The main impact, he said, is from the “hype and fear that it conjures”.
Police said they found evidence the group had planned further attacks targeting security officials and foreigners in other cities such as Bandung.
“It’s basically the same people”, he said.
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Afif, who also uses the alias Sunakim, had trained in an Islamic paramilitary camp in Indonesia’s semi-autonomous Aceh region in 2010, national police chief Badrodin Haiti told reporters. The circumstances of his early release were not disclosed. “His vision is to unite all ISIS supporting elements in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines”. Jakarta was last the target of a major co-ordinated attack in July 2009, where the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels were bombed.
